Wednesday, April 25, 2012

If you have the time to do something, you won't have the inclination to do it, or you'll find yourself stumped the instant you try. If you don't have the time to do something, you'll instantly be besieged by creativity for that project and will promptly curse your timetable.

How well, I know this!

After two days back in full-time work, doing almost nothing creatively, I have used today (a public holiday) mercilessly to do the things that I didn't have the brainspace to do back when I had the time to do them, and for which I now have not the time to do them, but apparently have the brainspace!

So, this morning I wrote 1000 words in 2 hours. I haven't done that for months. MONTHS. And then I set out to lay out and finish sewing together the top of a baby quilt and did that in another 2 hours!

But since that's going to be a full quilt-and-bind job, that's in the WIP section.

I did one project finish - it nearly stayed WIP forever - and moved a little on several WIPs, while a whole bunch of things continue to sit still.

Whoa! (Finished)

Only one thing got finished this week - my eReader cover:

It was supposed to be part of the HST Festival, but life got busy and the kitchen project got messy and I never ended up having the time.

Besides, it's not exactly a quality piece of work, I'm afraid!

Faster! Faster! (WIPs)

My friend, Ness, has a niece and a nephew coming along in May and commissioned some quilts for them!
We went shopping, picked out the fabrics, and all was good.

Okay, except for the bit where I forgot that the stripey material (not pictured) was supposed to be the binding and chopped it up for blocks. Oops!

But this morning I laid it all out, didn't let the nagging voice that points out it's nowhere near as good as a quilt from RPQ stop me, and sewed the damn thing together!

Huzzah for finished baby quilt top!
Now I just have to finish the other - and decide if I'm going to do roughly the same thing, or if I'm going to mix it up a bit. Any thoughts?

I might start fussy-cutting the blocks when I get home from bible study potluck tonight.

To do
- New York Beauty blocks 7, 8, 6, 2, and 4
- Birthday Blocks - still two blocks to do by May
- Books and Blocks Bee block for April - still sitting in a bag on the shelf, waiting for the Kona White to be cut...

Thursday, April 19, 2012

I received the offer yesterday afternoon, and replied back as soon as I'd read through the contract. It seems like a good workplace, positive, encouraging, interesting.

The bad news is that I won't have quite so much time for quilting...

My WIP Wednesdays may begin to look a little thin on the ground as I start projects...and never get around to finishing them. Let's hope not!

finished

You saw the unbound Floating Wildflowers last week: now check it out all bound and pretty!

The wedding was wonderful - probably the most spontaneously enjoyable wedding I've been to in a long long time. Most of my friends do the full formal thing, but this was a country wedding with class!

But I didn't end up giving them the present! Mostly because I wanted them to be able to open it while I was there (there was to be a bbq the morning after the wedding with present-opening and stuff, but due to some issues, it didn't eventuate as expected).

So I've still got it, all wrapped up and waiting!

Unbound

Mum's Impstar has come back from the quilter's!

The star pattern turned out really beautifully! Although I think the quilting makes it all a little busy, I don't think Mum will mind too much!

Now I have to find a binding fabric for it! This was a really difficult quilt to find a border for, so binding it is going to be awful...

Go Back To The Mountain, Turn The Quilt Around

So this one has a really long name, partly because the prints and colours made me think of Harry Belafonte and his segment on the Muppets, singing "Turn The World Around"

Ah, my childhood!

It was supposed to be the back for Central Park Boxes, but the quilter suggested that it be made into a quilt all its own.

I think it's turned out rather well, actually! Now I just have to find a binding for it. Maybe something in a nice brown-with-orange-patterns batik...

unfinished

Still the baby quilts. Which I have to get done today (Thursday), tomorrow, and Saturday, because next week I start a new job!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

One finish (sort of) and quite a few blocks done this week. The long weekend helped, although as usual, I didn't get as much done as I'd like.

finishedFloating Wildflowers

With the border and the quilting, although not with the binding yet. Tomorrow, perhaps.

It looks better than I dreamed it might! And so much grateful thanks to Jo of Thirroul Custom Quilting for pushing it to the top of her to-do list for urgency!

Work in ProgressBooks And Blocks Bee

Finally having my 99 Modern Blocks book, I could start on this!

tessophia wanted the Boxed In block by Faith Jones in the same kinds of colours as the example in the book:

So there's a couple of the Sanctuary collection by Patty Young, a couple of the Terrain collection by Kate Spain, a Secret Garden fabric by Sandi Henderson, and a couple of patterned colours from my stash.

Spin The Bobbin is next and she wants the Selvage Strings block in patriotic colours:

I'm not sure I particularly like the way I've done this quilt, but I don't really have any alternative options since I'm out of fabric. As it is, I accidentally cut up the fabric for the binding! D'oh! I'll have to go back and get more.

I need to lay it out and sew it. Maybe tomorrow...

New York Beauty

Finally got this party started! I did the fabric cutting on Saturday and started putting it all together that night!

So far, there are two Block 0s, one block 1, and one block 5!

And blocks 7&8 have some of their fabric pieces, but I still have to hunt up the rest. And print out their patterns...

Festival of HSTs

Project 1: a cover for my Sony Reader!

I've been thinking of doing this for ages, but I never got to it until now.

Some assembly still required...

Behind Door Number 2 we have Japanese squares!

I have no idea what I'm doing with these. I could put together enough to make a tote bag, perhaps? Or perhaps very big mug rugs? I'm not much of a one for mini quilts: I prefer bed-sized ones.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The New York Beauty Block quilt seems to be one of those things you have to be in the mood to do!

I finally picked my colours, printed out some templates and began sewing things together! I'm going with strong reds and yellows for the spikes and curve fills, blues batik-washes for the background, and greens for the centres, with other colours to be included as required.

Block 0 was relatively painless to make and looks quite good!

But I'm a bit annoyed with my colour choices for Block 1 because the orange half-spikes blend into the red background rather than contrasting as I wanted.

Oh well. I'm not going to make that block again! Far too finicky to do more than once! I will make another Block 0, though, seeing as I have the pattern printed out and it's quite an easy block to make. And maybe I'll switch the colours around to mix things up a bit. Could be interesting...

That's photographed in artificial light. I might try to take a decent one by daylight tomorrow.

I have to do some more cutting out of pieces for Blocks 5, 7, and 8, but will hope to get at least one down, maybe two, by later this week.

But currently, they're in little plastic bags, with their notes on assembly, waiting to get the rest of their pieces so they can be sewn together!

Naturally I don't like my colour choices right now as much as I like the colour choices of some of the others in the flickr group.

There's just so much variation and style in the photos in the flickr group! I love how quilting is at once a mix of the pattern you're using and the fabric choices the quilter makes.

Monday, April 9, 2012

I've changed my tack on this: instead of one small quilt (which would have an impressive number of HSTs to it) I'm going to make several small projects.

1. a cover for my Sony Reader, which has been slotted (quite comfortably) into a purse I bought while in Paris last year. It's time it had it's own casing.

2. A zippered pouch of some type, kind, or description for keeping knick-knacks from my sewing space in. Or perhaps a pencil case. Something useful for organising. And which doesn't have to look too nice and co-ordinated, because it's gonna get scrappy!

3. Something else with these:

These were left over from Mum's Impstar (which is presently out at the quilters'), and they're lovely and elegant and teeny-tiny!

I'd actually ike to make a full quilt with these: but I suspect it would only ever manage to be a mini, because I don't have quite enough HSTs! And I can't think of any other options... Heat pads? Mug rugs? Placemats? Cushions?

The fabric seems entirely too nice to be using it for something that's going to get splattered with food and drink.

Maybe I could collect enough of them together to make a bag? Or a laptop case? Something?

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Not much done this week - I think finishing the Scrap Attack took a lot out of me.

I'll have plenty of time for quilting this weekend since it's the Easter (extra-long) weekend in Australia - Friday through Monday is a general office holiday, and Friday and Sunday are public holidays (most shops are shut). It's perhaps a little ironic that such an irreligious country should have such clusters of public holidays around the chief festivals of the Christian faith...but I am not exactly complaining!

And there's a Southern Cross Quilters meet this weekend! Huzzah!

I'm thinking of seeing if I can make the Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City this year. Hopefully I'll have a job and can take a week off to get over there...it would be wonderful fun, I think!

The backing is just a cream fabric. The quilting pattern is a lovely swirls-and-bubbles one from Joanne's collection of options.

That's the kitchen (in the midst of renovations), and that's one of the kittehs. In a minute, she'll discover my foot is behind that corner and about to give her a nudge in the nose!

WIPsFloating Wildflowers is off to the quilters. I gave up trying to match the backing to the front fabrics, because it was a complete horror trying to find the fabric line and getting someone to deliver to Australia. Ah well. I'll be better prepared next time!

Not sure that this is what I want to do with them, though. There's not really enough for a decent sized quilt. And I like my quilts to be 'decent sized' by which I mean, they'll at least fit on an adult bed. (Unless someone wants a cot quilt.)

So I'll think about this a little longer.

I had a bunch of HSTs left over from the Supernova quilt and the border of my Scrap Attack:

And there's still a lot of those to sew and press - not just from the Supernova, but other off-cuts, too:

But mostly what's bothering me is the layout.

Stars?

Chevrons?

Basic diamonds?

Or Funky?(Although I think the quilt is supposed to be...75% HSTs? So this last one doesn't quite fit the bill...)